My rating is based off the gameplay alone.

I can't in good conscience recommend this as a game, because the gameplay is just godawful. It's a 3D beat 'em up and the game is mission-based, separated into two-types of missions. The ground missions are musou but worse, and the aerial missions, while serviceable, are very boring. There are two really good boss fights, out of several, and that's all you get. I fell into Stockholm syndrome, and eventually just got used to it, but it's not good. If you're insane enough to go through it anyway, you'll be greeted with an interesting meta-narrative that escalates extremely well until the final cutscene. It's full of "this is just okay enough that we won't get sued"-style Berserk references, which as a Berserk fan, kept me engaged enough to continue. The narrative only begins to pick up after you get a couple of endings. However, the narrative gets so wild beyond that, that I think it's very worth experiencing. If you're willing to put up with a lot of shit, you'll get rewarded by the end. Make sure to get every ending.

This game was made when Takumi took the phrase "I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you" too seriously.

A reflect bomb is such a crazy idea but Takumi took that idea and ran with it. This game is a bullet hell, but that twist allowed them to create bullet patterns where using your reflect was extremely advised. The best part of it is that this game has been cleared without using the reflect, so they even took self-imposed challenges into account when designing this monster of a shoot 'em up.

If you're unaware, you have a special sort of bomb in this game that allows you to reflect bullets and gives you a few seconds of invulnerability. It's on a cooldown, but it's pretty short, and you'll be using that reflect a lot during your play through. As the stages get harder, due to the ranking system where bullets get faster and the distance between them gets shorter, the density of the bullet patterns become harder and harder to micrododge, further reinforcing the use of your reflect. You'd want to anyway. Do you have any idea how good it feels to send hundreds of bullets hurdling back at your enemies?!

Your choice of four characters comes down to preference since all of them are pretty strong, except for that one guy who's really bad, but even he's good enough to get a clear with. The first 3 stages are random based on that selection and, much like ESP Ra.De., Strikers 1945, and several other shmups, have different difficulties based on the order of the stages.

The real game starts at Stage 5, however, which was the bane of my existence. Routing it was difficult, as a small mistake could easily extinguish one of your lives. I saved almost all my bombs for that stage, as I felt the penultimate boss and the final boss (only accessible if you're going for a 1CC), were easier to route. That stage has fast bullets, and tons of enemies. It's a big step up in difficulty. But man, is it fun to play.

I could go on, but a game to me has to play well to even be considered a 5/5, and this one plays too well. The music is probably a sticking point for some as I felt it was samey, the artwork is really nice on the eyes, and the visibility of the bullets is clear. I never felt like one snuck up on me, unless I just was not paying attention. If you care about presentation, you'll still get your fill, with some big explosions and spectacles coming from the bosses. The final pattern in this game is just hundreds of bullets that create an excellent feeling of slowdown and you ram them up the final boss's ass for stalking you the entire game.

Fuck you, man, I got a reflect bomb, and it makes reflect noises. 5/5. 10/10. Capcom, why the hell did you stop funding shoot 'em ups?!

My 1CC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aBpaB7r5S0

My 1CC (1,354,660): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pufTnOK3E6M

I don't know why I haven't heard of this game before. It's an excellent cabal shooter, a genre with already very few games in it. It looks cool, sounds cool, has some sick art and is really addicting to play. I'm not going to take the time to fully explain what a cabal shooter is, but it includes games like Sin and Punishment and Wild Guns where your character and cursor move in unison. Though in those games, you have a few more mechanics to play with. Here, you can also duck and move around while ducking.

Similar to those games, you go through each stage trying to destroy everything in sight for points. You have collectibles such as ammo, health and bombs. You get one bomb at 120K points and every 100K points there after. In addition, there's a boss at the end or close to the end of each level. You are graded on 3 criteria, how much you have destroyed, how fast you have killed the boss, and how much health you have left.

This allows for a lot to master. Sure, bosses have strategies where you can cheese them, but as you can see from my run, you will not get max score this way. You lose a hell of a lot of points. You also get 100K points at the end of the game for each bomb you don't use (for a max total of 8 bombs or 800,000 points), so here's a ton of optimization in this game, where I can't even begin to describe what a perfect route would look like.

All this makes for a high replayable romp that I could not put down for just over a couple of days of grinding. I spent around 9-10 hours on this one. A clear, IMO, is not hard to get if you use all your bombs and know how to cheese the bosses (which may sometimes be necessary), but that's not the point of this one. Play well and score well. My score here is quite modest, as the world record is around 1.7m points, but the optimization and routing are very, very strict the higher you want to go, making for a wonderful time.

A great remake of the original Outrun.

There's some changes here that are good and bad, though.

Negatives; I think the game is easier. I can't really figure out why, but my guess is that they grant you more time to complete the course as my times were longer than in the Sega Ages Outrun version on the Switch and even more than in Cannonball. This is my main complaint. It's certainly not a dealbreaker, however. There's also the possible that I've just played way too much Outrun over the years, so my opinion of the difficulty may be skewed. I'm not going to knock off any points due to that.

Neutral; I think the larger vehicle sizes will make this version of the game harder for some. You can zip through some smaller spaces in the original but you will almost definitely clip vehicles when you race in this version. It's a bit more RNG for that reason but it didn't bother me much.

Positives; I think the biggest change, however, is the addition of Arrange mode. This mode legitimately rules. It is definitely the reason to play the PS2 version. It's now 7 stages long, though they converge (1>2>3>4>3>2>1). You have new courses like the Canyon and Vegas which are awesome, and you have to race against a rival per stage, and they stack. The tension of accidentally slowing down can cause a rival to speed up past you and even knock you off course. It's a very good mode. You have to play really, really well. I've read some people also didn't like the remixed music? They're good remixes. They don't touch the originals or the Switch version's music, but I enjoyed them.

I think this version of Outrun is worth playing. I beat it in 5 hours with the base settings (I played on Normal; I can't figure out the difference between Easy, Normal and Hard, but I think it's like the original's dip switch which just adds more vehicles). I cleared every original race, and the Arrange mode while beating all seven rivals. Upload here: https://youtu.be/GZGMK2XoL-8

Definitely recommending this one. It's only a 4/5 instead of a 5/5 because I do think the original game is just superior in nearly every way. If this game did not have Arrange mode, I would see no reason to come back, but the Arrange mode is worth returning for.

I've cleared every course in this game, including the new ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UXVOhvBtds

This game is still excellent no matter how many times I clear it. It is the best racing game, IMO. Combines good reaction times with good memorization skills. The cars in front of you can be RNG at times, but not so much that it's impossible to adjust. Turning feels really damn good, and maneuvering through levels feels just fantastic. Sega Ages also does allow new players to adjust their experience and set levels to have higher starting times and less cars as training wheels for higher difficulties. I recommend this version. I enjoyed the features of Cannonball but having Leaderboards, Replays, an amazing new soundtrack, and the game's visuals just getting an impressive upgrade makes this version the best Switch exclusive, IMO. The replayability is through the goddamn roof.

This is an excellent port of OutRun, one of the best arcade racers you can play, and my personal favorite racing game. You can customize pretty much everything from time, to amount of traffic, to assists (training wheels that make the game easier for newcomers, if you want them), and more. I cleared Continuous mode, which is a mode that allows you to play through all 15 levels at once. It's a bit too easy considering they remove the transitions since there are no paths to take so you have a lot of extra time, but I had a good time nonetheless.

If you do not have a Nintendo Switch or do not want to emulate, then go for this version. You need the rom files, but other than that, it's one of the best versions of the game. You can get it for consoles as well. It runs great on a PlayStation Vita with custom firmware, especially.

1CC'd with Yusuke at 41 hours and 24 minutes. https://youtu.be/1xLUxvuavPI

ESP Ra.De. is not usual CAVE fare. It's still bullet hell, but the approach you take in this game is much different than in games like DoDonPachi and Mushihimesama. Patterns in this game do not require nearly as much micrododging, but the game often demands you macrododge. It doesn't like it if you try to dodge in a corner, it will wall you and force a hit. It wants you to keep moving from one side of the screen to the next. It takes it further by forcing you kill enemies quick, or you will miss out on items that both increase your score and your supply of energy. The risk/reward keeps increasing with each stage. The routing for stages 4 and 5 is very strict, demanding you make no mistakes, and the final boss tests everything you have learned, by being a moving target with a small hitbox that you need to keep on top of. It's so meticulously made and so very addicting to play. I'm not the best at reviewing, but I urge you to play this if you even have the most minuscule amount of interest in shoot 'em ups or CAVE. It's fucking peak.

I was lukewarm at first. The earlier half of this game is pretty uninteresting. Luckily, that makes it pretty short. Once the second half starts, the game really ups the difficulty, makes the checkpoints more brutal, and has some really great encounters. Oltanis, Gemlik Base and Veldin were the standout levels here. The hoverboarding mini-games were also fun to go for high-scores in, with a cool trick system that could have been its own game if it there were more tracks. It also has an excellent final boss that really expects you to perform well. I recommend this one.

To get the negatives out of the way; I was a bit disappointed that Turtle Rock showers you with resources. It was still a great dungeon, but it made it pretty easy to get through. The final boss is on the easier side as well (the feather is really busted in that fight). Finally, Color Dungeon was just kind of okay.

To sing its praises; This legit might be the best 2D Zelda I have played to date. The dungeon quality is excellent and the way the dungeons lead you to the correct paths is very clever. Even the final dungeon, which showers you with resources, was still fun to play. The map is excellent as well, with some interesting geographical progression, including a long item trade quest line that requires you to explore nearly every facet of the game to figure out.

I like how you need to use your whole arsenal effectively as well and the game doesn't let up on that. You need to remember everything it teaches you, you need to use all your items as you receive them, down to trying to find walls that have different noises in order to bomb for secret paths. It builds upon everything really well and never stops testing what the player has learned.

Tal Tal Heights might also be my favorite theme in any of the Zeldas now. What a bop.

This is a rather disappointing sequel to what was a great and tightly made Metroidvania.

While I don't mind it in order to make the player more aware of their resources in boss fights, the addition of a stamina bar makes traversal a chore since you move so slow, even with the additional run power-up you get an hour in.

A lot of enemies just get staggered after a hit or two and you barely need to do anything to avoid them. One of the sigils you get to start, the one where you can do 10x the usual damage on your first arrow shot if you have max stamina, breaks a lot of the beginning areas.

You can be as aggressive or passive as you want with bosses, but enemy tells are so far in advance, that you can probably get through several boss fights without so much as taking a hit.

I've read that difficulty is really low on a first playthrough, and that the late game gets a bit better, but I'm not really willing to go any further than this. You can tell the developer probably wants to move on from this series, since this is the last one. It's certainly not a bad game but it's just very, very bland.

Fun game. I didn't expect much after the NSMB series of games but the level of creativity on display here is up there. It's got a slow start since World 1 doesn't pick up until the end, but it gets going after that. My major complaint is the difficulty curve. I had to introduce my self-imposed challenges to make up for it, but the game's easy to the point where some levels have nothing in them. I hope they increase the difficulty for future entries instead of leaving the challenging levels until the end. I don't think Nintendo gives enough credit to new players being introduced to the franchise.

Eccentric art, inspired by cartoons like Courage the Cowardly Dog, is backed by great level designs that serve the game's purposes of speeding through levels as fast as you can for the highest rank and score that you can get. Well-placed secrets and great enemy variety as well as unique mechanics give each level its own unique charm and tests you for not only speed, but your ability to route levels in order to keep your combo from breaking. Players looking to master this game have a lot to learn. And I gotta say, the final boss of this game is just batshit insane in the best way.

I have no issues with this game, but I will note that, just out of personal preference, I wish levels were shorter and more difficult. Mistakes can be common while you play through each level and learn your routing, and the game is nice enough to give you a "second wind" of sorts and keep your combo meter up through forgiving enemy and item placement. This is understandable, as levels are long, so I don't fault the game for it.

This is not to say the game is not challenging. I've spent around 2 - 3 hours per level, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, going for P-ranks, and my routes could definitely be more optimized. However, I would have liked a more arcade-style "make one mistake and you're done" experience. Of course, there are still plenty of moments where that's true, depending on how well you've routed each level, but there's also a lot of moments where the game forgives you for making certain mistakes. Those moments seem randomly placed and don't really align well with the difficulty progression.

Indie games seem to compromise between having the mechanics of arcade/arcade-style games, but having generous pacing so people don't really have to learn them as in-depth. Arcade games need memorization to a much heavier degree. I think the game would benefit from having a life system or health bar implemented so there's at least a fail state outside the bosses. Once again, my criticisms are just personal preferences. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the current state of the game.

Finally, the game's soundtrack is pristine. This might be my favorite game this year so far (though there's still plenty to play). There's several more releases coming, but even so, Pizza Tower is absolutely one of the strongest contenders. I liked it quite a good bit.

There's a type of design philosophy that I have been trying to define when it comes to shoot 'em ups. A combination of the feeling of a perfect level of speed, combined with excellent enemy placement and bullet patterns that never slow down, with music complimenting the action that creates an incredible feeling of adrenaline with each and every action the player takes; a "high" that lasts for the entire duration of the game, that never ends, until you hit that credits screen, and you're ready to do it all over again, because it was a meditative experience that comes once in a lifetime.

That is Mushihimesama. My favorite shoot 'em up, and one of the best games ever developed. For the love of Ikeda, play this one.